26 SEPTEMBER 21, 2017 RIDGEWOOD TIMES WWW.QNS.COM
OUR NEIGHBORHOOD: THE WAY IT WAS
Hop into the Times Newsweekly time
machine for a trip back to this date in 1995
BY THE OLD TIMER
EDITORIAL@RIDGEWOODTIMES.COM
@RIDGEWOODTIMES
Oh, how diff erent the world was
22 years ago.
The Internet, as we knew it,
was in its infancy. Most people communicated
with pagers and landline
phones; the iPhone was years away
from being invented. The O.J. Simpson
murder trial that had gripped
the country for nearly a year was
fi nally nearing an end, and the New
York Yankees were fi ghting for a wild
card playoff spot aft er years without
reaching the postseason.
In our world, on this date in 1995,
we published the eighth issue of our
88th year of publication. The issue
featured stories about a failed jewelry
store heist in Ridgewood; repairs on
the old Kosciuszko Bridge; a town hall
meeting with the mayor; and a couple
of up-and-coming basketball stars
from the borough.
Let’s hop into the Delorean, rev it
up to 88 miles per hour and take a
trip back to Sept. 21, 1995, in the Times
Newsweekly.
The top story on the front page was
about a botched jewelry robbery in
Ridgewood. Four armed suspects
stole $30,000 in jewelry from Gold
Mine store at 58-12 Myrtle Ave. on
the morning of Sept. 15. They then
carjacked a vehicle to get away from
the location. Offi cers from the 104th
Precinct launched a huge search of
the area and found two of the suspects
inside the stolen vehicle in the area
of Metropolitan and Eliot avenues;
a third was stopped at the corner of
62nd Avenue and 60th Street. The
fourth thief managed to get away.
The paper also focused on a meeting
of the United Forties Civic Association
in Woodside about repairs to
the Kosciuszko Bridge. The group’s
president, William Levis, suggested
that a monorail be constructed alongside
the bridge to reduce traffi c in
the area and cut down on pollution.
Some residents, however, were fearful
of any widening of the bridge
because it might result in the loss
of their homes and properties via
eminent domain. In the end, there
was no monorail, but the state Transportation
Department in the next
century fi nally got to work to build
a new Kosciuszko Bridge. The fi rst of
two new spans to replace the 78-yearold
structure opened this past April.
Also on the front page was an article
about Mayor Rudolph Giuliani’s
town hall meeting at Forest Hills
High School that drew 500 residents.
Accompanied by an army of city
offi cials, the mayor took questions
on numerous quality-of-life matters
from crime to education. Giuliani, for
his part, expressed his desire to control
the Board of Education. Mayoral
control of the city’s public schools, of
course, wouldn’t happen until 2002
under Giuliani’s successor, Mike
Bloomberg.
Inside the Ridgewood Times on
Page 4 was an ad for Jay Rose clothing
store, located at 68-19 Fresh Pond Rd.,
which was holding a contest in which
one lucky customer would win a $200
shopping spree courtesy of Alfred
Dunner sportswear. Page 11 featured
an ad from St. Aloysius Parish for
its two-week, 10-day bazaar. Niederstein’s
Restaurant had an ad on Page
22 off ering is “Octoberfest ‘95” special
in which diners could enjoy a hot and
cold buff et, an open bar and music
from a three-piece band for $40 per
person.
In the Times Newsweekly classfi ed,
on Page 43, Greenwood Manor — a
brand-new development located at
2116 Greene Ave. — advertised a
one-bedroom condo available for just
$88,000, and a two-bedroom unit for
just $128,800. If you put down a 5 percent
payment and took out a 15-year
loan, the condo estimated that your
monthly payment would be $729.18 for
the one-bedroom condo and $1,057.67
for the two-bedroom condo (mortgage
interest, taxes and common charges
included). By comparison, the average
monthly rent at the time was $750 for
a one-bedroom apartment and $1,050
for a bedroom unit.
In sports, on Page 52, there was
a story about the Gauchos 1995
Roundball Classic in the Bronx, a
high school basketball tournament
featuring some young hoops stars
from Queens. Among them were
two players would eventually excel
in college and make it to the NBA:
Lamar Odom of Christ the King Regional
High School in Middle Village
and Ron Artest, an Astoria resident
who attended the LaSalle Academy.
Odom would go on to play for the
University of Rhode Island before
entering the 1999 NBA Draft . The
Los Angeles Clippers selected him
fourth overall, and made the NBA
All-Rookie Team in 2000. Over 12 seasons,
he’d play for the Clippers, the
Los Angeles Lakers, the Miami Heat
and the Dallas Mavericks, winning
two NBA titles in the process. Artest,
who later changed his name to Metta
World Peace, excelled at St. John’s
University, where he helped the Red
Storm reach the Elite Eight in 1999.
The Chicago Bulls would draft Artest
in 2000, and he wound up playing for
six diff erent NBA teams (including
the New York Knicks) over a 12-year
career. Odom and Artest were together
on the 2009-10 Los Angeles Lakers,
help the franchise capture its 16th
NBA Championship.
